Undoubtedly one of the most mis-understood and generalised expressions in the IT market today must be the term 'Web Designer'? In truth, web design does contain many distinctive areas, & so it may help to simplify things if we go through each one. There are essentially 2 elements to web design - the 'technical' side and the creative design part. The average PC user considers web-designers determine how a site 'looks' & feels. A lot of people may consider a web-designer a kind of artist. Having said that, a professional web-designer will in reality be as occupied with the technical element of things as they are with the 'creative' side. We'll illustrate this with greater clarity when we separate web design up into it's various parts.

The people that design and build the images and graphic symbols to go on a website are referred to as graphic artists. Strictly speaking, graphic-artists usually aren't really web-site designers. More usually they are multi-media artists that make use of software like Adobe Photoshop & Flash to generate their end results. The majority have come from higher-education, typically with a degree-level art background. Plainly, this work demands a strong artistic flair.

Web site designers come next - these people work with design-software like Dreamweaver to create and design the 'look' & 'feel' of the website. By using visuals from the graphic-artist, they'll assemble the 'navigational' structure of the web-site, keeping in touch with their client to make sure that the 'feel' meets their needs. A novice web-designer tends to start with the form of the site, instead of the function. Yet, to truly build an effective website, it's important to start with a clear understanding of the things you require the website to really do. It's possible its in effect a web-based brochure, or an E-commerce web site where goods are available there and then. Maybe you want to show off goods via video and a heavily graphical inter-face, or perhaps it is mainly an informational site where the requirement is simple access to essential text content (like this web site.) Whatever the customer wants from a web site, the fundamental requirement is that it actually addresses the basic needs. So many sites look amazing but they are a nightmare to navigate & get where you need - and so visitors give up and never come back. The purpose of any reputable web designer is to first & foremost build an experience that visitors enjoy & feel relaxed with - so they will come back again & again.

Lots of independent web-designers can carry out a number of these jobs themselves; indeed we liaise with quite a few who are able to quite frequently. But, it takes quite some time to develop that level of expertise. An ideal professional web design training-program therefore should teach a number of things: Firstly, an introductory tutorial to basic web-design, followed on by training in Adobe Dreamweaver and an understanding of the main aspects of Adobe Flash. Next you must learn the 'coding' languages 'HTML' and 'CSS', and then be trained in a synopsis of just how e-commerce operates. 'PHP' has to be covered in order that 'dynamic' web sites can be built (ASP.Net is actually far more involved, & PHP is more straightforward to get into initially,) & a simple understanding of Databases & SEO should be mastered. The reason why you require all these components is they will give you the technical ability to be effective on all sorts of site builds. The actual physical abilities must come first of all, before you finetune them to a natural and flowing style - similar to the time you learned to drive your car. The majority of trainees can work through a versatile training course such as this within a yr - based upon part-time study and practice of about 400 to 500 hours. Careful preparation to obtain the correct training course for you is a worthwhile investment of your time - knowledgeable training advisors can help you to sort the wheat from the chaff before you get started.

The key resources used by web-designers are the design environments, with Adobe Creative Suite (currently in version 4 as of '09/10) staying the most popular commercially. Whilst 'Adobe Flash' provides access to interactive and animated 'graphical' content material, Dreamweaver is the software which builds sites. You could actually claim that 'Dreamweaver' is the Word-Processor of the Adobe Creative Suite range. In accordance with certain rules and constraints, it lets you place graphics and text, and then through a process called 'page linking' you can produce basic inter-activity throughout the site. Just like other web design environments, Dreamweaver produces the program-code 'HTML' in the background ('HTML' is short for Hyper Text Markup Language). In essence, this 'language of web browsers' is a 'script' that 'draws' and controls the page being watched. Alongside 'HTML' are the lay-out tag 'languages' - like XML and CSS. Because they are standardised, these tag languages can work on multiple platforms to allow more stream-lined 'HTML' coding and more efficient layout techniques. The theory is that the page will look the same on any web browser, whether it's 'Mozilla Firefox', Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera or whatever. Consequently the graphic blocks you are placing & the text you're adding is being converted into coding behind the scenes by Dreamweaver. It is vitally important to achieve an in depth knowledge of these types of languages in order to be a web designer at a commercial level.

Its important to understand that even the very best web-design programs can only provide you with the techniques & processes - not one can actually turn you into a bona fide web-designer. Put together as many sites as possible as you work through your studies - the process will be invaluable & you'll have a portfolio to show just what you can do. Your own websites should be about anything - the local music scene, horses, a writer you enjoy or motorbikes. You might even build interactive web sites and get traffic on them. Everything you do will add to your Curriculum Vitae, and prove much more to a company than just an 'Adobe' accreditation.

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